Editor’s note: The following is the homily that Bishop Lucia gave during the Chrism Mass on March 31 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse.
“You yourselves shall be named priests of the Lord, ministers of our God shall you be called” (Is. 61:6a).
There is the “parable of the pencil” that its inventor was said to have told when he finished making the first pencil. The inventor said, “I want you to remember four things:
- First, goodness and worth are inside you!
- Second, you’ll need to be sharpened along the way of your life!
- Third, you will be held in someone else’s hand — otherwise, you will make an awful mess!
- Finally, you will be expected to leave a mark!”
My brothers and sisters, this parable speaks to the occasion that gathers us on this Tuesday of Holy Week as one flock in our cathedral church around the Table of the Lord. Today, we come together as a diocesan family to celebrate one Eucharist and to bless the Holy Oils to be distributed throughout the Diocese of Syracuse that:
- First, announce our own goodness and worth in God’s eyes!
- Second, accompany and strengthen us along the road of life from its very beginning to its natural ending in God’s loving embrace!
- Third, through the hands of the bishops, priests, and deacons, empowering us to be ministers of our God!
- Finally, to become marked men and women who, sealed with the Sign of the Cross forever, sing out the goodness of the Lord in our world, especially to those who get pushed to the margins of society and to the curbside on the road of life.
To be anointed in sacramental terms means to be imbued … to be filled with grace and power, and to be deputed for a specific mission or service through a specified rite. Fundamental to this theme of anointing are the three oils that are blessed and consecrated in our Liturgy today.
First is the Oil of the Sick, with which the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is administered. Through this sacramental sign, God gives the sick person grace and strength to bear illness or infirmity. In addition, many individuals have witnessed the power of this anointing to bring spiritual, emotional, and even physical healing.
For me, such a moment occurred when, as a young pastor, I was asked to give the Anointing of the Sick to an elderly, hospitalized parishioner who was in her 90s. She needed emergency heart surgery the next morning, which was risky, so in the evening I went to her hospital room to administer the Sacrament of the Sick and pray with her.
The next day, her niece called me, and I was expecting her to update me on her aunt’s condition post- surgery. However, I heard her asking me what I did the night before. A bit confused, I responded, “What do you mean?” She said, the doctors, as part of pre-op, checked out her condition and could find nothing wrong … her aunt didn’t need surgery. In that moment, I came to know how healing power can go out from a person in the Name of Jesus. This is why in my recent pastoral letter, I placed such great importance on the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick for those in hospitals or who are homebound, or for anyone struggling with any sort of illness.
Second is the Oil of Catechumens used during the administration of the Sacrament of the Baptism. This anointing is meant to be one of liberation — fortifying the one to be baptized to resist the temptations of the devil and to prepare a person to more deeply understand the Gospel of Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In turn, it also strengthens the person to accept the challenge and experience the joys of Christian living.
The third is the Oil of Chrism, from which this Mass gets its name. Three Sacraments are conferred with the use of Sacred Chrism: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Holy Orders of Priest and Bishop. The other two oils are blessed, but the Oil of Chrism, mixed with the Balsam that gives it a sweet-smelling fragrance, is consecrated. Anointing with chrism oil signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is used to consecrate someone or something to God’s service. Thus, its fragrance is a perceptible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is the agent and the principle of every anointing from above. This fragrance is also a sign of God’s presence, which every anointed person is called to manifest in their daily living.
The great bishop and catechist of the early Church of Jerusalem, St. Cyril, beautifully described this reality: “Having been baptized into Christ, and put on Christ, you have been made conformable to the Son of God… Having been made partakers of Christ, you are properly called Christs (anointed ones).” Through our baptism and confirmation, we truly become “other Christs” in the world.
Thus, sisters and brothers, our readings for this occasion remind us that anointing is always for mission! Jesus was anointed not for his own glory, but to serve others—to bring good news, healing, and deliverance. Similarly, our anointing in baptism and confirmation is not merely for our personal sanctification but for service to others.
Pope Francis, during his service as Universal Pastor, consistently called us to be a “Church that goes forth,” bringing Christ’s healing and mercy to the margins of society. He would constantly announce through both word and deed, that “the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful.” This is precisely what Jesus announced in his inaugural sermon at Nazareth—a ministry of healing, liberation, and restoration.
My brother priests, in a few moments, I will invite you to renew your priestly commitment to be the living sacrament – the living sign of God present in the world – that you have been called to be through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This calling is to be at the service of the People of God and to help them respond to the Universal Call to Holiness. In order for this to happen, this day you and I are being invited to unite ourselves ever more closely to the Lord Jesus and to recommit ourselves to being more faithful stewards of the Lord’s mysteries.
In his Apostolic Letter of December 22nd of last year, “A fidelity that generates the future,” Pope Leo XIV wrote: “Every vocation is a gift from the Father, which needs to be faithfully preserved in a dynamic of ongoing conversion. Obedience to one’s calling is cultivated each day through listening to the word of God; celebrating the sacraments, especially the Eucharistic Sacrifice; evangelization; closeness to the least among us; and priestly fraternity, all drawing on prayer as the preeminent place for encountering the Lord. It is as if the priest returns every day to the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus asked Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ (Jn 21:15), in order to reaffirm his ‘yes.’ In this sense, we can understand the hope expressed in Optatam Totius that priestly formation should not stop at the end of seminary (cf. n. 22), but instead open the way to continuous, permanent formation, which will create a dynamic of constant human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral renewal” (#7).
Brothers and sisters, let me draw our reflection on the Word of God for this occasion to its end by echoing Pope Leo’s closing paragraph in the aforementioned Apostolic Letter: “In conclusion, I give thanks to the Lord who is always close to his people and walks with us, filling our hearts with the hope and peace that are to be taken to everyone. ‘Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world’” (#29).
“You yourselves shall be named priests of the Lord, ministers of our God shall you be called” (Is. 61:6a).
